Game 27: Phoenix Suns (21-5) @ Portland Trailblazers (11-16) l Tuesday l 8:00pm l TNT

[Slim Charless]

Haven't been able to watch the game but from the highlights It's really weird to see teams try to trap CP3 with slow bigs. I know Billups wants to try some different things other than drop coverage and it might work against some teams but CP3 is just too damn good and kudos to Ayton for finishing well after the pass. Part of me loves the high level of offensive strategies but it is also painful to see talented bigs like Nurkic being almost unplayable at the highest level.

Drop is also not the answer to guys like CP and Book of course. Suns then just kill you from the mid-range as we saw last year against the Nuggets and how Paul just dismantle their defense. All of these comes down to best solution to stop teams with these kind of talented and smart ball-handler is going small-ball. That's why Ayton is so crucial for current&future success of the team. His ability to finish in traffic and against smaller player will be our bread and butter against small ball line-ups. He was amazing last year playoffs and Ayton is playing close to that level this season but I still want him to be more comfortable dribbling and driving to the rim. If he becomes elite at punishing small match-ups Phoenix becomes super hard to beat in a 7 game series.

I really hate that from all the teams and players in the NBA we played against a Bucks team with Giannis going supernova man... Giannis at 5 was just a simple and a great weapon to have against the Suns.

This is all true of course....but we just had crap luck too. Game 4 and 5 I remember were right there for us. I think both Chris and Book had bonehead turnovers in the finals mins/secs that cost us.

We win either of those and I still think we could've bested Giannis, his free throws and Coach Bud doing Coach Bud things in what would've been a insane Footprint Center.

Just the way things go. Hell, Bucks should've lost to Brooklyn if KD had worn a smaller shoe size.

If we have THIS Ayton and the Booker/CP3 we've gotten the past 2 years.....we'll blow MIL outta the water in a rematch.

[Bogyo]

Haven't been able to watch the game but from the highlights It's really weird to see teams try to trap CP3 with slow bigs. I know Billups wants to try some different things other than drop coverage and it might work against some teams but CP3 is just too damn good and kudos to Ayton for finishing well after the pass. Part of me loves the high level of offensive strategies but it is also painful to see talented bigs like Nurkic being almost unplayable at the highest level.

Drop is also not the answer to guys like CP and Book of course. Suns then just kill you from the mid-range as we saw last year against the Nuggets and how Paul just dismantle their defense. All of these comes down to best solution to stop teams with these kind of talented and smart ball-handler is going small-ball. That's why Ayton is so crucial for current&future success of the team. His ability to finish in traffic and against smaller player will be our bread and butter against small ball line-ups. He was amazing last year playoffs and Ayton is playing close to that level this season but I still want him to be more comfortable dribbling and driving to the rim. If he becomes elite at punishing small match-ups Phoenix becomes super hard to beat in a 7 game series.

I really hate that from all the teams and players in the NBA we played against a Bucks team with Giannis going supernova man... Giannis at 5 was just a simple and a great weapon to have against the Suns.

This is all true of course....but we just had crap luck too. Game 4 and 5 I remember were right there for us. I think both Chris and Book had bonehead turnovers in the finals mins/secs that cost us.

We win either of those and I still think we could've bested Giannis, his free throws and Coach Bud doing Coach Bud things in what would've been a insane Footprint Center.

Just the way things go. Hell, Bucks should've lost to Brooklyn if KD had worn a smaller shoe size.

If we have THIS Ayton and the Booker/CP3 we've gotten the past 2 years.....we'll blow MIL outta the water in a rematch.

It would also be nice if Jrue and Middleton weren't allowed to beat the crap out of CP and Book, while on the other side of the court Giannis gets more FT's than the whole Suns team. not likely, but hey a man is allowed to dream, right?

[garrick]

https://www.complex.com/sports/2018/04/how-nba-scorekeepers-track-player-stats

Interesting article about NBA statisticians and how bias can affect the way they record stats, assists in particular.

Three seasons ago, the NBA started releasing the Last Two Minute Report because Commissioner Adam Silver wanted more transparency in officiating. The NBA isn’t as clear about how they keep stats. Suspicions about assists arose earlier this year when Lonzo Ball, and others, were credited with some questionable dimes. It was enough of a story, Rachel Nichols discussed it on The Jump.

But, this isn’t the first time NBA statisticians have been accused of bias. One claimed in 2009 there had been a league-wide scorekeeping partiality and that he’d unfairly awarded 23 assists to Nick Van Exel in a 1997 game. More recently, Simon Fraser University professional sports analytics researchers Matthew van Bommel and Luke Bornn published a detailed quantitative report showing scorekeeper bias in NBA box scores.